HomedotMagisReflectionsFinding Hope in Communal Puzzle-Building

Finding Hope in Communal Puzzle-Building

Hope Through the Twists and Turns - text next to traffic sign indicating winding road

Editor’s note: Throughout July, we’re hosting 31 Days with St. Ignatius, a month-long celebration of Ignatian spirituality. In addition to the calendar of Ignatian articles found here, posts on dotMagis this month will explore the theme of “Hope Through the Twists and Turns.”

How do we find hope when social issues are so large and we often seem so far from being able to make serious movement toward building God’s kingdom on earth? As a teacher in a service-learning program, I often wonder what hope looks like as we face so many places where our world needs so much. Many of my students volunteer in contexts such as schools with limited resources, recovery programs, shelters or houses of hospitality for people who are unhoused, and programs to help formerly incarcerated folks find employment. What is my own place in that much larger scheme? What’s my contribution and its meaning?

When I arrived on my most recent retreat, a puzzle box was out on a large, empty table in the residential wing for retreatants. For the first day or so, not much of the puzzle was touched, but after a while, a few people began to put together the frame of the puzzle, starting with what was most needed to build out the rest. I enjoyed stopping by the table every day to sort pieces by color or add in a few pieces to start to build out the puzzle. It was fun to see what was added by others when I was away for a time of prayer or on a walk. I’d return, and just a little more of the puzzle was built. As is typical, the more that was added in, the easier the rest of the puzzle became.

unfinished lighthouse puzzle - image courtesy of Marina McCoy

As I helped add to the puzzle, it emerged for me as a metaphor of how to have hope in the building up of love, life, peace, and justice in our world. Like working a puzzle together, we each contribute something, but not everything, to the tasks that lie ahead. We each have our different gifts; some might build out the frame or sort the pieces while others work on one section of sky in the landscape, but we all need each other. Some of us might serve at a food bank or a prison while others engage in political advocacy or leadership. Contemplatives pray for the world. Even working for justice and peace in our workplaces and our families helps to build up that world.

My capacity to hope is strengthened by knowing I do not have to do it all by myself. Others—most of whom are as unknown to me as the identity of whoever added pieces to the puzzle while I was outside—are also working for the world that Jesus envisioned for us.

At the end of my retreat, the puzzle was not yet finished, but that seemed like a metaphor too. Perhaps someone after me would come to complete it. Likewise, our work may not be completed even in our lifetimes, but our contribution is still meaningful and contributes to the emergence of a most beautiful and hopeful picture of what might yet be.


Today in 31 Days with St. Ignatius, read When Walking Became a Disordered Attachment by Gretchen Crowder. Then use the hashtag #31DayswithIgnatius on your favorite social media channels to share where you find hope through the twists and turns.

Marina Berzins McCoy
Marina Berzins McCoy
Marina Berzins McCoy is a professor at Boston College, where she teaches philosophy and in the BC PULSE service-learning program. She is the author of The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness and Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Philosophy. She and her husband are the parents to two young adults and live in the Boston area.

5 COMMENTS

  1. This post is very encouraging at a really terrifying time in America. Thank you. One day at a time doing all I can.

  2. Marina,
    Thank you for your Ignatian-inspired prose describing God’s presence in us and among us, as we do the work of the People of God – listening, caring, tending to ALL our sisters and brothers – as we are able.
    Rob

  3. Reminds me of the teaching of Jesus about the kingdom. We all have an important place in the kingdom helping one another.

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